OKC Heart Walk 2007

The following is a letter we sent out to our Family and Friends (those that we had email addresses for). If you did not receive this by email please take the time to read the letter. If you want future letters please send me your email address at adamandfaithkuykendall@hotmail.com. Thanks for your support!


Dear Family and Friends:

HEART WALK 2007.APRIL 28TH 2007.OKC BRICKTOWN BALLPARK

As most of you know, Gavin was born in October of 2006 with a very rare congenital heart defect, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome and other heart defects. HLHS is one of the most complex cardiac defects seen in the newborn. In a child with HLHS all of the structures on the left side of the heart (the side which receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumps it out to the body) are severely underdeveloped. Treatment involves "re-plumbing" the heart to allow the right side to do the work normally done by the left. Therefore, Gavin only has one ventricle, the right, and it does all the work. This treatment is done through a series of three surgeries. There is no long-term prognosis for the series of surgeries since the oldest children who have undergone them are only in their early twenties. Some children with HLHS eventually will require a heart transplant. Because of the American Heart Association, Dr. Peter Pastuszko, OKC Cardiology Team, Nurses and Staff at The Children’s Hospital in OKC, Gavin is able to receive the best of care and is now a healthy and happy 4 month old! Gavin has had a tough journey in his 4 months of life, but he is a true fighter. God has blessed us and used us in so many ways because of Gavin’s condition!

We are supporting the Oklahoma City Heart Walk as our way of saying Thanks for all the hard work that the AHA and doctors do in order to save the lives of many others just like Gavin! This is our first time to participate in the OKC Heart Walk. Another HLHS family inspired us. Daric Voss was also born with HLHS and is now a strong little boy. They have started up a team with another HLHS survivor Reece Jones. We will be joining them in the walk. There are lots of other children with Congenital Heart Defects, the NUMBER ONE birth defect! So please help us in making awareness not only about HLHS but Heart Defects in general. We are creating a team of walkers (TEAM GAVIN, TEAM DARIC, AND TEAM REECE) to help us reach a goal for the American Heart Association Walk. We know that not everyone will be able to participate with us but we wanted to invite you to visit our web page by clicking the link below. If you would like you can make a donation in honor of Gavin on his personal web page or you can just join us for the walk. Please do not feel obligated---we truly just wanted to share our project, which we are doing in honor of Gavin with you. We plan to put our "hearts" into this yearly. Any amount would be greatly appreciated...However, there is an online minimum of $25.00 amount required so please feel free *edited* to email us and we will give you our address to make donations to AHA. Please feel free to pass this along to your friends and family members. Thank you to all of our “heart” supporters out there! We love all of you and God Bless.

Adam, Faith and Gavin Kuykendall

Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support American Heart Association - Greater Oklahoma CityDivision

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Some email systems do not support the use of links and therefore this link may not appear to work. If so, copy and paste the following into your browser: http://heartwalk.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=185979&u=185979-165712818&e=964790804

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